Carded Friendship
by Flareons
Summary: While visiting with Mana in Portugal, Allen wanders off and meets someone unexpected. Young!Allen


**Title**: Carded Friendship  
**Author**: A. Haverstock  
**Characters**: Young!Allen  
**Rating**: G  
**Warnings**: n/a  
**Word Count**: 2010  
**Genre**: General

**Young!Allen, (D.Gray-Man) **for my curiousity (2010 words)  
_Self-Prompt: Shock us with the obvious, Oh Mighty Fandom-Killer. Include Young!Allen ftw._

When Allen Walker was six he and his father visited a friend in Portugal.

Mana and his friend are so busy discussing Allen's future that they don't notice when Allen himself slips out of the chair he was sitting in and walks out the door. He saw a cat dart across the street he could see from the window and decides to chase after it.

He loses sight of it before he's even begun his search and decides to go exploring instead.

Allen manages to find the marketplace with little trouble at all and proceeds to look, wide-eyed, at all the interesting things the merchants have to sell. There are stands for nearly everything he can imagine -- probably more -- and delicious sights and sounds and smells assault his senses until he's dizzy with it all and has to find somewhere deserted for refuge.

There is a small alleyway nearby with a few crates that he can sit on, so he looks around carefully before wandering in and resting his feet. He arches his back in a delightful stretch and yawns until his ears pop. He supposes that this probably wasn't a good idea because when he opens his eyes he finds himself face-to-face with a madly grinning teenager.

"_Oi_," says the smiling face. "_Quem é você_?"

Allen blinks at him in confusion before remembering that people here spoke Portuguese. Mana had taught him as much of the language as he could before they came here and Allen had picked it up startlingly fast. He made a game out of looking at everything around him and repeating the word in Portuguese, and now his game would pay off.

_Who are you?_

He looks at the stranger for a moment, warily, until he sees that the smile directed at him is evident in the stranger's eyes.

"_Si você quer saber meu nome, dizer seu nome primiero_." If you want to know my name, tell me your name first.

"_Meu nome é Mick_," the teen replies easily. "_Agora você_." Now you.

"_Meu… nome é Allen_," he answers softly.

The stranger's smile widens.

"Your accent sucks."

Allen puffs his cheeks out in annoyance. "It does _not_."

"Obviously it does if I knew you spoke English," Mick says flippantly. Allen pouts at him angrily in response.

"At least I can speak it," he argues. He thinks that being able to speak Portuguese so well after only a few months is quite impressive. He's quite ready to defend himself and is preparing for a snide remark in reply, but the curly haired teen just laughs heartily at him.

He doesn't know what there is to laugh about and so clenches his fists at his sides.

"WHAT'S SO FUNNY?!" he cries out.

His exclamation is followed by stunned silence.

Mick stares at him in amazement before snickering, "Oh my _God_. It has to be illegal to be that cute. Do your parents know where you are, midget?"

"I don't have any parents," Allen admits ruefully, "But I do have Mana!"

"What's a 'Mana'?" asks Mick curiously.

Allen looks at him like he's stupid and the young man snorts back a laugh. "Mana's my father."

"I thought you said you don't have any parents."

"I don't," he says. "I have Mana. He looks after me and worries about me and…" he trails off with a look of terror so great that Mick gets a little nervous as well.

"He doesn't know where I've gone!" Allen cries out in horror. Tears well up in his eyes and Mick starts to panic because he doesn't know how to deal with happy kids, let alone _crying_ kids.

_Ah_, his mind sees fit to pitch in, _but you were dealing quite well with him a minute ago._

_No I wasn't_, he argues. He gets no reply and sighs.

Resigned to his fate, Mick grabs the young boy by the hand but reels back in shock when it's slapped away almost immediately. Allen's face is shocked and apologetic and he realizes that it must be an action of reflex and not of thought.

"Listen," he says awkwardly, "I'll help you find Mana if you don't cry. And I mean it. If I see one drop of water roll down your cheek I'll leave you where you stand, alright?"

Allen nods and, when Mick turns to lead them on their search, reaches his hand out and grasps onto the young man's sleeve shyly. Mick looks at him in surprise for a moment before nodding and leading them out onto the main road.

Everything seems louder and brighter to him now and he clings onto the dark-haired teen's arm tightly. He doesn't like crowds, but he has a friend looking after him. They are on their way to find Mana, and he isn't as frightened as he was before because he can feel the heat of Mick's body through the shirt he clings to and is comforted by it.

"How old are you?"

Mick's question startles him and he lets out a squeak of surprise. "I-I'm six years old," he stammers, embarrassed.

The young man looks surprised, "I thought you were eight and just small for your age. You're a lot smarter than the other six year olds I've met."

"Then you must not have met too many," he mutters.

"Not really, no," Mick admits. "Hey, are you hungry? Aren't little kids like you supposed to be eating all the time?"

Allen opens his mouth to answer in the negative when he feels his stomach gurgle and he decides to change what he was going to say at the very last moment: "I haven't any money with me."

"And you're _British_," declares Mick, navigating them through the mid-afternoon crowds. "That explains everything."

Allen trots to keep up with him. "Explains what?" he demands.

"_Everything_," the curly-haired teen answers. Allen pouts and so he adds, "Well, your bad taste in clothing, for one."

"I do _not_ have bad taste in clothing," Allen denies.

"You look like an oven-mitt. I call that bad taste."

The child pouts at him and replies defensively, "I get cold easily."

Mick waves him off. "I know you're hungry, so let's get you some food and then you can tell me where you're staying so that I can shove you through your door and be rid of your argumentative little self."

Allen isn't sure what 'argumentative' means, but he knows what the rest of what was said to him meant and even though he's not happy with it, he's looking forward to eating something so he merely pouts in reply. Mick ruffles his hair with rough-affection.

"Ever played a game of poker?"

"I don't think so," Allen answers in confusion.

"Well then," says Mick, "We're gonna have some fun."

.-.

Two hours later Allen finds that he's still staring at his new friend's hands in rapt attention. Never in his life had he seen anyone cheat at cards so swiftly and gracefully. If he didn't have such good sight he knows he never would have caught Mick switching cards and shuffling in his favour.

He also knows that he never would have figured out how to cheat as fast as he did if he never got the chance to watch his friend at work.

Mick sees the kid eyeing his hands and finds himself amused by Allen's complete awe of him. He wonders if all children look at him like this and decides, almost immediately, that they wouldn't.

"So," he says once they've gorged themselves on foods with his earnings. He was surprised at how much the kid ate, but just shrugged it off. Some people just had high metabolisms. "Where are you staying? I'm sure Mana must be worried."

That was, apparently, the wrong thing to say as Allen paled so dramatically that Mick feared for his health. He stops himself from reaching over and comforting the boy and instead slides a pack of cards in front of him.

He's grown attached to the kid, he realizes as he hands over his favourite deck, and he wonders if this is what it's like to have a younger sibling -- if the constant niggling, foreign feeling of worry is normal.

Allen looks at him in surprise, "What's this for?"

"It's for you, stupid," he says. "To remember me with when you leave."

Allen's look of surprise softens. He opens his mouth to speak and Mick is shocked to hear a low rumble of thunder come out of it. Allen's jaw clicks shut and his eyes are wide as saucers.

There's a flash of lightning followed by another round of thunder and the clouds that had so innocently shielded them from the sun now poured their fury down upon them.

Allen panics and stumbles backwards into Mick. His hands are shielding his face from the rain and the teen pulls him into a nearby door-stoop. Allen doesn't uncover his face until he's sure that not a drop of rain will hit it. His friend stares at him with wide, caramel eyes and the boy is worried that Mick will leave him there alone.

"Are you going to leave me here?" Allen asks worriedly.

Mick looks at him in confusion. "Why would I do that?"

"'_If I see one drop of water roll down your cheek I'll leave you where you stand'_," Allen quotes. "The rain," he explains. "I let some get on my face by accident even though I tried my hardest not to."

The boy is so honestly worried that Mick laughs. "Well," he says. "We're sitting down right now, aren't we? So I guess this doesn't count."

Allen breathes a sigh of relief and sends him a grateful look. "I'm a very lucky six year old," he enunciates. "I travel the world with my father and get to meet so many nice people."

Mick pats him on the back companionably. "You're not such bad company, for a six year old."

Allen crinkles his nose at him and leans against the stone wall beside him. He sees a familiar silhouette in the distance, though it's hard to tell with the wall of water blurring the edges of everything together. Then he sees the shape of his father's top hat and a grin breaks out on his face.

"Mana's here!" he cries out joyfully.

He's careful not to step out from the protection the stoop is giving them, but hops back and forth excitedly on his feet. Mick pulls him down by the hem of his jacket.

"You're going to slip, runt."

"I'm not a runt."

"Whatever," says Mick. He watches the boy's father's shape become clearer the closer he gets and wonders what the future has in store for them both.

"You'd better take good care of those cards, pipsqueak," he mock-threatens. "You'll need all the practice you can get to beat me the next time we meet."

Allen stares at the deck of cards he's cupping in his hands for a moment before handing them straight back to the teenager. There is a determined look on his face that looks out of place on such a young person.

"I don't need them," says the boy. Mick is guarded. He'd opened up to this child on a whim when he usually kept himself closed off to the world.

"Why is that?" Mick asks.

"I don't need a silly deck of cards to remember you," Allen answers with all the wisdom of one ten times his age. "I'll find you again, someday. You can give them to me when I beat you."

Mick receives a quick and meaningful embrace and then is left standing alone on a stoop with nothing but a pack of cards to keep him company. He stands there staring after the boy he'd come to care for long after he'd vanished out of sight.

Out of sight, out of mind, he thinks. But never out of heart.

Stepping out into the world blurred by rain, Tyki Mick wonders how different they'll both be when they meet up again.


End file.
